Memento mori
by phineyj
Summary: It's five years since Cameron left Princeton, but the past is catching up with her.


**Author's note**

**This one's adult (please only read if you're over 18), depressing and involves themes of death and serious illness. It's a bundle of laughs really! Not.**

**Oh, and I started this after seeing Half Wit, so spoilers for everything in Season 3 up to and including that episode.**

**Memento mori is a Latin phrase that may be freely translated as "Remember that you are mortal," "Remember you will die," or "Remember your death".**

Memento mori

_Now (2012)_

Allison gets the call when she's in the middle of a meeting with some relatives, so she almost doesn't take it. But Mrs Schneider has been dabbing at her eyes with a tissue since she was told five minutes ago that her daughter has Addison's disease. As the phone continues to ring, she bursts into full-blown noisy tears. Her husband turns to comfort her and Allison thinks she should give them a few minutes.

"Excuse me," she says, softly, and she puts the call through to the conference room and goes through to pick it up. It's eight o'clock on a Friday evening, and she sent her two fellows home an hour ago. She's spent her whole medical career looking forward to the day when she'll be senior enough that she can kick back, relax and let her subordinates take the strain, just like all the attendings she's ever worked for. But it seems it takes a certain kind of personality to do that; the kind of personality she unfortunately doesn't have. So even though she has her own department now, she's still as busy as ever.

She picks up the phone and apologises to the caller for keeping them waiting. The phone is by the window and she glances out over the lush parkland that surrounds the hospital buildings, watching as a solitary jogger rounds the path by the lake in the gathering dusk. She thinks absently that she should try to get at least one day off this weekend.

"Could I speak with Dr Cameron?" the person on the other end is saying and Allison thinks how odd it is to be called that. She went back to her maiden name when she moved out west; it's been years since anyone's called her Cameron.

"That's me," she confirms, thinking she'll find out what they want before giving them her correct surname.

"I'm calling from Massachussetts General. You're named as next of kin for a Dr Gregory House?"

Her heart starts to pound and she suddenly finds she's gripping the counter by the window, hard. "I am?"

"Yes. I'm sorry to have to tell you that Dr House passed away this morning."

_Then (2007)_

There's no going back after that kiss. After she leaves House's office, syringe still empty, every nerve ending buzzing with adrenalin, her knees are so wobbly she has to go and hide in the locker room until she's calm enough to join the others. As she rests her forehead against the cool green tile, she replays the whole scene in her mind. His expression when he asked if she was sure she wanted to leave; the rush of sorrow she felt when he said, "I'm not dead yet". The way he tensed but didn't pull away when she touched his face. And most of all, the way he responded to her. I knew it! she wants to shout to the empty locker room; I knew I wasn't imagining this! She can still taste him on her tongue: coffee and salt; and feel the warmth of his fingertips where he'd grabbed her wrist.

She is so glad when they find out he isn't going to die, but as she, Chase and Foreman stand in his doorway at four in the morning, happy and slightly hysterical with their news, she is somehow not surprised when his expression fails to change. He'd let her – them – down too many times now for it to be more than a further drop in the great ocean of disappointment that is caring about Greg House.

But later, when she's back home, taking a shower, because there's not much point in going to bed when she's due at work in a couple of hours, it occurs to her she has proof positive now. He can lie to her and pretend he feels nothing all he wants, but he can't deny his physical response. He doesn't kiss like a man who's yet to make his mind up.

_Now_

Allison finishes the conference with the Schneiders as quickly as she decently can and calls the Dean at home to explain the situation. He's warm, helpful, tells her to take as long as she needs. She has so many vacation days owing the human resources office will probably be relieved; she thinks she's probably screwing up their averages. The poster outside their office says, 'Bay View Campus: A Great Place to Work," with a photo of a fresh-faced young medical professional tending to an adorable elderly patient in a room with a fabulous beach view. It's true, schmaltzy pictures aside. It is a great place to work, and she's been happy here.

"A bereavement; I'm so sorry," says the helpful girl on the airline desk with the too-bright pink lipstick; her French manicure clicks on the keyboard as she scrolls quickly through flight information. They can fit her on the flight to Newark this evening, she says, and she repeats again, "I'm so sorry."

The flight is half empty and Allison stretches herself out across several seats. She should sleep but she's not tired; she has that feeling she used to get at the end of a double shift, when the body's gone beyond wanting rest into some strange hinterland of semi-wakefulness where small noises are astonishingly loud and colours stretch and oscillate in flamboyant patterns. It's not unlike being drunk. If she remembers correctly; she hasn't had a drink in years.

_Then_

They have a critical patient and Chase has drawn the short straw and is doing the overnight shift. Cameron isn't expecting anyone, but when her door buzzer goes at ten p.m. she finds House standing there. His blue shirt is even more wrinkled and crumpled than it was earlier in the day. He's tapping his cane on the top step; a carrier bag dangles from his left hand. He hands it to her; it contains a bottle of expensive French wine. She looks from the label to him.

"Turns out Hallmark don't make a 'Sorry I'm not terminal' card," he says, and his tone is jaunty, but the shame in his eyes betrays him. She steps aside to let him in; his arm brushes hers as he passes by, and she feels a jolt of electricity surge through her. This thing with House has never been rational. What she feels is what she feels, and when she's in a room with him, all her synapses fire like Christmas lights. She's never felt so alive as she has these last three years; she's never been so aware of every move she makes and every word she speaks.

She watches him prowl around her apartment, looking at her books, pausing in front of the framed family photographs on the sideboard. He's about as relaxed as a caged tiger coming down off meth, and twice as dangerous. She is so tired of waiting.

She says, "House. No more games."

"But I'm so _good_ at them," he replies, putting the photo he's been examining back down on the shelf, and moving towards her.

He takes her right hand in his left and raises it to his face, kissing the fingers and then the palm, and this turns her on so much she feels flushed with heat all over; she moans and slides her wet hand up to his scratchy chin. He moves to her lips and the kiss is urgent and wet, all tongues and teeth. He puts an arm around the small of her back, pulling her to him, and she feels the top of his cane dig into her hip. His other hand goes up into her hair and his warm fingers are on her scalp.

When he lets her go she sees him gathering himself to say something – _you kissed back_, perhaps – and she isn't allowing him to mess this up with mockery, so she drops down to her knees, unzips his flies and takes his cock into her mouth. She thinks to herself it's just as well she's had so much practice over the past weeks. She should feel like a tart, but she doesn't. She has never been anything but honest with Chase

House is half-hard already when she starts to lick and suck him, and she listens with fascination to his increasingly ragged breathing as she rolls her tongue around the head and brushes her fingers experimentally across his balls.

"Cameron," he says urgently, and she can feel his legs shaking, just a little; she immediately feels guilty; it has to be difficult for him to keep his balance like this. She stands up, and he is smiling, in that wolfish way she remembers from when he came back to work after the shooting. _(Would you like to get a drink? Do you eat?)_

"Cameron, you do have a bed in this place, right?"

She's tempted to reply 'No, I hang upside down like a vampire bat', but she's not House; she doesn't have to paper over every awkward moment with sarcasm. So she simply nods; he zips himself back up and she takes him to the bedroom.

_Now_

Wednesday-morning Newark is crowded with early morning arrivals and Allison has to elbows her way towards the taxi rank through ranks of purposeful businesspeople; the sky is a sullen grey and snow is falling in light flurries. Her coat is too light for the weather, and she pulls it closer round herself and shivers.

She wishes she'd called ahead last night and arranged someone to meet her. She'd thought about it, but she wasn't sure who to call. Wilson, perhaps; she had an email from him last month, just a couple of lines, when her paper was published. It would have been easy enough to call him but something stopped her. Oh, who's she kidding? Something? The reason she was reluctant to call Wilson is the last time she saw him she wanted medical advice. For herself.

_Then_

It's not easy or comfortable, the first time; she knocks his thigh by mistake as she lies down on the bed beside him; he elbows her and complains her bed's too small. It is too small; she didn't buy it with the thought of accommodating the six foot plus of Greg House.

Cameron is expecting him to be in a hurry; impatient to get to third base, or hit a home run, or whatever sporting metaphor fits finally getting it on with the employee who's carried a torch for you for three years. But once they're settled on her bed, they kiss for a long time, testing each other out like teenagers, while his hands move over her chest and down to her hips. He takes his t-shirt off and drops it on the floor and she tries not to look at the bullet entry wound on his stomach; she doesn't want to remember what it was like, waiting and waiting for him to come around.

His mouth moves down to her neck and to the V of her t-shirt, scratching the delicate skin there, and she can hardly breathe now. He tongues her navel and undoes her jeans to reveal her plain white cotton panties – well, what were the odds of this happening? The road accident was much more likely. He licks her through the soft cotton and she arches her hips upwards and moans, loudly.

As she strips off her clothes, and he removes his jeans, she suddenly feels overwhelmed by this – by him – although it's what she wanted. At least, it _was_ what she wanted, once upon a time, but she's not sure she's even the same person who wanted it. Her doubt and confusion must show on her face, because he says, "I'm not going to bite," and when she rolls her eyes, he adds, "unless you want me to, in which case just ask."

"So cocky," she says, reaching over him and getting a condom out of the nightstand.

"You could say that," he offers, raising his eyebrows as he glances down at his erection. All at once, she's feeling okay about this again. She rolls the condom on and lowers herself onto him, ignoring the persistent sense of unreality. This is really happening, she tells herself firmly, as she starts to move; This is really happening and you might as well remember it in case it only happens once.

He pulls her down to him, one large hand round her neck, and they kiss, losing their rhythm and then finding it again; it's awkward, but exciting, and it occurs to her that describes everything to do with House. She remembers sitting on a table next to him looking at a bloodstain on the floor, so close she could feel the warmth of his body; remembers eating sticky-sweet cotton candy and joking she'd race him to the car. She remembers when he said he was proud of her. She knows this man. She's seen him at his worst and his best; he's part of her life now, like it or not.

This is so different to how it was with Chase; it's rawer, less controlled; she's aware she could hurt him; she's still upset with him and with herself, although the longer this goes on, the harder she's finding it to remember what she was so angry about.

House reaches a hand between them and finds her clit; she rubs herself against his fingers and says, "Fuck." He gives her a sudden, open, unguarded smile; comments, "that would be the technical term, yes," and she thinks, two can play at this game. She squeezes him as hard as she can, and then he's the one cursing.

Her orgasm, when it arrives, is one of those which sits right on the dividing line between pain and pleasure; her brain is so confused now, it hardly knows which is which. House thrusts up into her one final time with a groan, and flops back on the bed, eyes closed.

"I thought you were going to die," she mutters into his shoulder as she gets her breathing back under control.

"We're all going to die," he says, matter-of-factly and then so quietly, she thinks afterwards she's imagined it, he whispers, "Sorry."

_Then_

"Tell me something I don't know," he says, lightly, as he lies beside her. "Something about me?" she clarifies, because what else is there she'd know that he wouldn't? He nods. She thinks for a moment.

"I was a cheerleader in high school," she says, turning to face him.

His jaw drops. "Whoa, really?" He grins to himself. "Next time I zone out in the clinic, you'll know _exactly_ what I'm thinking about."

"Your turn," she says, because House never asks idle questions; he wants to tell her something.

He looks at her, and he's serious again.

"When I came back to work, after I was shot?"

"Yeah?" A picture of him in his grey suit and pink shirt comes into her mind, along with his overflowing, anarchic happiness at being free of pain. She has to suppress the pang of sorrow that it was all so short-lived.

"I really was trying to ask you out."

_Now_

Wilson's waiting for her when she gets to the morgue. He doesn't see her right away; he's talking to the attendant, a middle-aged lady in a white blouse and flowered skirt; she could be a librarian. Allison wonders if her friends know what she does. She clears her throat and Wilson and the attendant turn.

"Allison; I wasn't expecting you so soon; you should have said, I'd have picked you up from the airport," Wilson says, walking towards her; he kisses her quickly on the cheek. She can tell he's uneasy; she's in an awkward hinterland between patient, colleague and friend.

Wilson's as good-looking as ever – she always thought he was easy on the eye – but his hair is receding over the temples, although he's not going grey; she wonders if he dyes it.

"Your hair suits you short," he comments, mirroring her thoughts; she pats a hand self-consciously over her head; she's not sure he's right, but by all means, let them talk about hairstyles rather than anything more important.

"Well, I guess we should, uh, get it over with," Wilson says, as the attendant retreats tactfully into her office. Wilson opens the door labelled Viewing Room at the end of the room; the one she's been avoiding looking at. She appreciates the hospital have gone to some trouble. There's a piece of framed abstract art on the wall in soothing shades of blue and green and fresh yellow tulips in a vase on a side table.

House is laid out on a wooden table, dressed in a black t shirt, faded old blue jeans and sneakers; she guesses these were the clothes he was admitted in It's his stillness she finds most jarring. House was never still; she remembers his uneven, but somehow athletic stride; even when he was just sitting around you were always aware of a thought process going on. Now there's nothing at all, just the quiet buzz of the air conditioning and the things she and Wilson aren't saying. Such as, is this our fault?

She remembers, a long time ago, sitting in the back of a crowded lecture hall and asking him, "You find it more comforting to believe that this is it?"

"I haven't spoken to him in over a year," says Wilson, finally, rubbing at the back of his neck with his hand. "Hadn't." He looks at her. "I did try, you know."

"I know," she replies reassuringly, because didn't they all?

_Then_

She's lonely when she gets to California, but she's used to being alone. The views and beaches and the mild weather more than make up for her solitary life. She knows people are only being polite when they ask how she is and how they can help her, but their warmth is so convincing she chooses to take it for the real thing.

After a few weeks in a hotel, she looks for a place to live. Ocean View Apartments do, in fact have a view of the ocean. She should have expected nothing less; this is California, after all. It's a litigious place; the fireplace in her hotel room has a sign that reads, 'Warning: wood smoke contains carcinogens'. She was almost surprised on her first day at work that she didn't have to wear a lapel badge saying 'Warning: physician – may kill as well as cure'.

The new place has a big feature window; it's the main reason she takes it. She sets her desk and laptop up in front of the window so she can watch the sun setting over the Pacific while she writes up case notes and researches treatments. Sometimes she emails House when she's completely stuck; occasionally he answers. He doesn't waste words. One reply just says, Kraemer? And she has to figure out for herself he's suggesting she looks up a particular paper about auto-immune disorders.

The apartment's partially furnished, and there's an upright piano in one corner. She took lessons when she was a child, to oblige her mother, and hated it. Now, she finds it relaxing to try to remember the pieces she played so reluctantly as a ten year old. She mentions the piano in one of her emails to House; she has no idea why – probably just guilt at the fact she only ever contacts him to pick his brains.

She's surprised to find a parcel addressed in his writing in her mailbox a week later and completely nonplussed when she opens it to find a pile of sheet music divided into three piles labelled 'Easy', 'Medium' and 'For when the neighbours are bugging you.'

_Now_

There's a total of three people at the crematorium: herself, Wilson, and Cuddy.

Cuddy is as beautifully dressed as ever; she looks like a Sicilian widow in her tailored black suit with a hint of lace at the neckline. Her hair is as dark and curly as ever; a few strands escape from the chignon she has it swept up into.

Allison always got the impression Cuddy disliked her, right from the first day she met her, and she was never sure why. Now they're both five years older, she realises it's just one of those chemical things; they don't click – nothing more significant than that.

"You did your best," she says, and Allison thinks she's trying to reassure herself as much as she is anyone else.

_Then_

Six months: that's how long she and House manage to tolerate each other. She suspects, afterwards, some of their colleagues at PPTH lost considerable bets. She reckons most of the money was wagered on weeks, rather than months. It's not all bad. She discovers there's a lot she doesn't know about him. He likes to read in the bath – the bathroom at his place is like the foreign language section of Barnes and Noble. He has a collection of Spiderman comics in the walk-in closet. He's cuddly, especially on weekend mornings, when he's taken a Vicodin and gone back to bed.

_Now_

She opens the piano lid and finds a letter addressed to her resting across the keys. No one's called her Cameron in years, and seeing the name written down gives her a quick flash of nostalgia. She unfolds the sheet of paper – it's an old PPTH parking violation notice – and reads the message scrawled in leaky ballpoint on the back of it. It's recognisably House's writing, although the haphazardly-crossed 't's and blotched 'i's give away how much his hand was shaking.

_Cameron._

_If you're reading this, I am already dead._

_Ha. I always wanted to say that. Preferably without the actually being dead part, but that's life. Or, not. _

_Anyway. Do what you like with all my crap. If I've still got any money, spend it. Just promise me you won't endow a scholarship in my name. Go to Hawaii. Buy shoes. Anything but make some poor schmuck wonder who I was every time they pay in their pathetic grant check. _

_And don't cry. I'm not worth it. _

_G.H._

She goes into the bedroom. It's tidy and the bed's made up, as though he's coming back any time. The nightstand is piled high with medical journals and a Russian dictionary. There are several prescription bottles on top of the heap of books and journals. She has a look. The drugs tell her a story, one she already knows by heart: pain; drugs, booze, liver damage, kidney failure. As she reads the labels one by one, a familiar, sardonic voice says in her head, 'Typical. I have to die of something diagnostically boring.'

As she puts the bottles back down, she notices the top journal looks familiar, and she picks it up and flicks to the index. The second featured paper is by a Dr Allison Mason; the one that was published last month. There are more journals under the bed, and a small pile of them fastened together with a rubber band have a post-it note stuck to them with 'Cameron' scrawled on them in House's writing. She undoes the band and fans them out on the bed. Everything she's published since leaving Princeton is there.

She's tired; the time difference is kicking in. She lies down on the bed; there's something lumpy under the pillow; she reaches a hand underneath and pulls out a soft, well-worn gray t shirt and a pair of plaid pajama pants; the shirt still smells of him. And that's when she cries: painful tears that sting her dry eyes and don't make her feel any better.

_Then_

Later, with the benefit of hindsight, she recognises it was when Wilson handed in his notice that signalled the beginning of the end. House's Vicodin intake is at normal levels – well, normal for him, anyway – but he's been drinking a lot more. There've been vodka chasers with his beer in the evening; empty bottles in the trash can in his office.

She knows Wilson has noticed, but either he figures there's no point saying anything, or he does and it has no effect. At the time she believes his 'It's only half an hour's drive away,' and 'House won't notice one less person to torture.' Or, she tells herself she does, because the alternative would be that he's abandoned her to a situation she's losing control of. If she ever had it.

"Does having me around make you more miserable, or less miserable?" she asks, one night when she's had to turn up the TV to cover the sound of House vomiting up the pasta she cooked for dinner.

"It makes no difference," he says, matter-of-factly, "It just means I've got an audience." She knows he's telling the truth, but it hurts even more than when he lies.

He hits her one night; just a shove, but it leaves a bruise on her shoulder where it connects with the kitchen cupboard. He doesn't apologise; the next day, she's not sure he even remembers. She's never been good at cutting her losses, but that afternoon, she calls Foreman and asks him if he'll write her a recommendation for a post in California. He emails her job descriptions about once a month. He seems surprised that she's responded this time, but he doesn't ask any questions, other than practical ones about what he should flag up in the recommendation.

_Now_

She offers the piano and the guitars to a music school downtown. They provide tuition to young people who can't otherwise afford lessons. The man who comes from the school runs his fingers over the grand piano keys. He's about twenty years old, good-looking and earnestly enthusiastic.

"Are you sure about this, Dr Mason?" he asks, pushing his blond fringe out of his eyes. He reminds her of Chase. Chase, who as far as she know's still in Florida, heading up Intensive Care at Tampa General and working on his tan. She thinks about keen young students practicing their scales on House's piano, and she nods her head, "I'm sure."

_Then _

It's a year to the day after she arrives in California that she goes for a routine mammogram and hears the news she's not expecting; that no-one's ever expecting. _An abnormal mass; probably a cyst – nothing at all to worry about. _

But she's a doctor. She knows exactly what to worry about, in full, gory, Technicolour detail and so she does. The following weeks take on a dream like quality as she undergoes further testing – scans and biopsies; consultations and discussions where she asks awkward questions and sees other doctors wince as they realise they can't lie to her. That's one thing she learnt from House, anyway.

She continues to do her normal hours at the hospital including her twice-weekly shift at the free clinic; she pretends everything is normal. The removal of her lymph nodes is a minor inconvenience, done late one Wednesday afternoon when she has a window in her patient schedule.

The surgery and radiotherapy takes more of a toll; she is forced to tell her boss and her colleagues. She feels like she's let them down. Doctors aren't supposed to get sick. She remembers her husband's final illness; how old friends started to shun them, coming up with unconvincing excuses about why they couldn't visit. She expects the same from her colleagues, but they surprise her. She discovers she has more friends here than she thought she did. Former patients hear she's ill when they come for follow-ups and send flowers; she has so many visitors when she's recovering from the surgery, the hospital have to restrict them to two per session.

One night when she's back home, looking ruefully at the short fuzz of hair that's grown back, she almost calls House. She actually gets half way through dialling his number, before she stops herself. What's the point? He could get her number from Wilson if he wanted it. He probably barely remembers who she is, or cares.

_Now_

Allison's wearing her new bikini – her only bikini, in fact. She bought it a few months ago, after she got the all clear from her oncologist. It's purple with a thin pink stripe and the design, she hopes, hides anything that's off in her shape. The surgeon did a great job; she has no complaints.

She's a survivor. Yeah, whatever that means. She lost a piece of herself but she's still here.

She goes to the end of the boardwalk. It's early in the morning, not seven yet and there's hardly anyone around apart from the occasional jogger or person walking their dog, She waits until there's no-one in sight before she scatters the ashes into the Pacific, sending Greg House on one last journey; one final trip into the unknown.

She watches the specks of grey as they bob and float on the wave tops, until they've disappeared from view.

"I love you," she tells the grey-blue ocean, and the easterly wind grabs her words and throws them back at her. The only answer is the cry of a solitary gull as it heads out to sea. It sounds like a mordant laugh.

FIN


End file.
